Groundwater Seeps Into Basement and Causes Mold in Toms River, NJ

Homeowners in Toms River, NJ, found that groundwater had entered the basement. Fortunately, it wasn’t a great amount and the cleaned it up and fixed the crack where water was entering. Unfortunately, as this homeowner found out, it doesn’t take much water to trigger mold growth. A couple of days later, they checked the basement and noticed some mold growth on the sheetrock. Mold will attach to any organic material and use it as food, dissolving it with powerful enzymes. Even though sheetrock is made of inorganic gypsum, it has thick sheets of paper that mold will attach to.  

Here, the sheetrock was not structurally damaged and we could treat the mold directly. As often happens, as long as there is no loss of structural integrity to the materials, we can treat the mold — often in less than a day — and leave the materials alone, avoiding an expensive tear-out and renovation project. We treated the affected areas with our EPA registered anti-microbial called MAPS 1, which attacks mold on a cellular level and kills it instantly.

We then scrubbed away the mold and applied MAPS 2, which is our patented sealant that encapsulates the surface mold is growing on and renders the mold non-allergenic and harmless. MAPS 2 is also moisture-sensitive and reactivates whenever it gets wet to prevent the return of mold.

The homeowner was pleased that we could quickly resolve the mold issue. With the groundwater problem fixed, this homeowner should not have a return of mold.